By way of background, in situations where a number of printers are configured in a network or otherwise are expected to perform to a uniform level, calibration of these printers is typically necessary. In this regard, standard practice is to calibrate printers to a common aim. In the printing environment, the common or desired aim is a value or a set of values that can be measured and represents a desired response of the printer or printers that are subject to the calibration. This is also referred to as a fleet aim.
As with any physical process, however, the ability to reach the desired aim through calibration is imperfect. This imperfection and divergence may well occur no matter the calibration technique used. By chance, two printers may diverge from the desired aim in the same direction. This makes the printers appear to look more alike, e.g. respond in uniform manners; however, it does not result in printers achieving the desired aim. That which is more likely is that the printers in a group or fleet, even if calibrated using the same calibration technique to achieve the desired aim, will diverge in different directions. This, of course, makes them, on average, more different from each other than from the common aim.
As one alternative for calibration, calibrating one of the printers to the achieved response of the other printer can be accomplished. However, while some uniformity may result, this will also result in a lack of desired uniformity and a larger-than-needed error from the common aim.
As a further alternative, an average of the responses of the printers in the fleet can be calculated. All of the printers can then simply be calibrated to the average. However, the response of any one of the printers might not be achievable to obtain the average. That is, the inherent physical characteristics of the printer or the environment may prevent the printer from achieving the average in any circumstances. To illustrate, with reference to FIG. 1, an average response of a series of printers may be graphed in a L*a*b* color space as shown. A desired aim is also illustrated. As one can see, the average response is actually more difficult to achieve for a printer “n” than the aim. Indeed, the average response may be impossible to attain for the printer “n”. Again, this will result in a lack of desired uniformity and a larger-than-needed error from the common aim